Identify Essential Concepts
Building off of your research question, what are the most essential concepts that ALL articles must discuss? These concepts will form the basis of your database searches.
Research Thesis/Question: The Effect of Judicial Decisions on Issue Salience in Media Serving the LGBTQ+ Community
Essential Concepts:
Develop a List of Synonyms and Related Terms
Identify synonyms, related terms, jargon, specific examples of a concept (e.g. SNAP is an example of a federal program), and if available, database-specific thesaurus terms. Plan to search for these terms. The purpose of incorporating these other ways of phrasing your topic is to ensure that the database will perform a comprehensive literature search. In multi-box search engines, combine synonyms and related terms together with the boolean operator OR.
Example Search in Political Science Complete
